208 BEGINS CATALOGUE OF CANADIAN PLANTS 



Before I was attached to the survey, I had aspired to be 

 Botanist and I thought that, possibly, I would be attached to the 

 Agricultural Department, but, instead of that, I was attached to 

 the Geological and Natural History Survey, as it was called at 

 that time. I found that my powers were very circumscribed and 

 my position one that gave me a great deal of trouble. Dr. Selwyn 

 restricted me to mounting only one specimen of each species of 

 plant from each Province, no matter how many I might collect, 

 and the specimens that were not used were tied up. 



During this winter, the Marquis of Lome decided to form a 

 society of all the leading scientists and scholars in Canada, which 

 was called the Royal Society of Canada. The appointments 

 were all made by his own selection and the whole society was to 

 consist of eighty members divided into four sections. His secre- 

 tary sent me a note asking me if I would allow the Marquis to 

 place my name in the fourth section, which was called the Geolog- 

 ical and Natural History section. Of course, I graciously accepted 

 the position and was appointed by His Excellency as one of the 

 first twenty of the Royal Society. At present, the members that 

 I know of our section, that remain alive, are: Sir James Grant 

 (Sir James died a few months before the author) and myself. 

 The reason of so many deaths was because they were nearly all 

 old men that were appointed. At the meeting of the Society in 

 May, we were all invited to Rideau Hall and took dinner with 

 the Marquis, who was at the head of the table. I think that it 

 was at this dinner that Mark Twain sat at the Marquis' right, 

 as I know it was at one of the dinners we had that I saw him. 



I was now settled at Ottawa and began to put in shape the 

 formation of a complete collection of all the plants of the Dom- 

 inion (as, up to this time, only a few lists had been published) to 

 take the form of an annotated catalogue of the plants, and men- 

 tion in it that we had, in our herbarium, specimens of all those 

 plants given under those names. At the time I joined the Survey, 

 very little had been done towards forming a museum there, other 

 than the purchasing of a collection of shells from Mr. Whiteaves 

 when he joined the survey and a few that he had added to it 

 since. Dr. Dawson was the only one on the staff, except myself, 



